After a suicide

Tuesday’s episode – that’s my pick of the week. People on the street are trying to wrap their heads around Aiden’s suicide.

So there’s the story of the suicide and the intersection of it with other stories. My only criticism is that its story arc is more like a spike. Johnny and all can’t be the only ones wondering when and why Aiden decided to kill himself. Still, despite the ‘huh?’ element in the storytelling, it is done brilliantly.

Gail’s Monologue

Gail looks out her front window and says to her mother, “Forty-odd years I’ve lived on this street…” She continues to speak, but we see other people, other houses. People reacting to the news that Aiden has killed himself. “Oh no, American soap trick again,” I thought. But it quickly drew me in.

Her words were powerful. Wondering what exactly you were doing when someone else was going through the worst crisis imaginable. Thinking your problems are the worst in the world, only to find out someone else’s were far worse.

Listening to Gail while watching the faces of others as they tried to absorb what they were hearing. The factory. Maria telling Liam. You didn’t need to hear – you knew what they were saying. It’s what you’d say yourself.

So very effective dramatically. Also time-effective in terms of storytelling. It conveyed an important message in Gail’s words and showed all those who were feeling what she was saying.

Pub Postmortem

Everyone gathered, like you would, in the neighbourhood pub. They hashed out their thoughts on suicide. Tragic? Selfish? Who is hurt the most by it? Could it have been prevented? All the thoughts that we all have, if we’ve been touched by suicide or not. Important sentiments to have voiced.

“I don’t half love you”

The morgue attendants taking Aiden out, covered completely in a body bag. Johnny asks them to stop for a minute. He touches his hands to where his son’s face is, inside the bag. “I don’t half love you,” he tells him. I lost it then. Twenty minutes of pent-up emotion spilled out in my tears for Johnny. For Aiden. For everyone so deeply affected by this action.

“I was raped”

David heard about Aiden as he is leaving for court and possibly prison for his attack on Gary Windass. He takes off. Shona finds him. Finally the words he needs to say come out of him: I was raped. He tells her what happened with Josh. For him, his personal hell has become entwined with what must have been Aiden’s own hell. But he says, he’s realized he wants to live.

There’s a good article on BBC about the writing of the two episodes of Aiden’s suicide.